SEED POTATOES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 1, Issue 56, 3 January 1913, Page 4

SEED POTATOES.

Necessity of Proper Selection. (By J. Dryedale, Manager Wereroa State Farm). It is most extraordinary that in those days, when so much importance is being attached to the pedigree of seeds and animals for breeding purposes, so little attention should be paid to the selection of seed for such an important crop as the potato—in fact, that the accepted principles of breeding shuuld in the case of potatoes be absolutely reversed. Instead of the seed being selected according to type and vigour, and only from the best plant) in the crop, it is a common practice to take the seed in an indiscriminate manner from the harvested tubers, and then use only the smaller specimens for the important work of continuing the species. In other words, in place ot the most typical and most vigorous tubers being chosen for seed purposes, it is actually the worst that are taken. This is no wild assertion: eogeneral, indeed, is the practice that merchants in supplying seel send out potatoes which have been quite discarded for orcinary market purpose—more of a type generally regarded as "pig potatoes" than as being suitable for seed. In selecting potatoes for seed purposes it is not to be supposed that size is everything. The large gross specimen is just as undesirable as small we:dy tubers. The plants in the field should be studied, and roots of the most thriving and vigorous ones examined lor the desired seed. In choosing the seed potato, the first thing to see to is that the tuber ia of the correct type of the particular variety. Having this, the medium size should be preferred, providing—and this is a most important point—the eyes are well defined, and sug gestive of strong development. A large number of eyes is not always desirable, just as merely one or two eyes are a weakness. A tuber with a medium number of eyes is the best type to choose. Tne selected potatoes should be carefully stored in a cool place, and preferably greened off befo>e planting. I am convinced that, if the sound rule weie consistently observed—to select only the strongest and best types of potatoes as sets for ihe subsequent crop—less would be heard of blight and failure. Constitution in potatoes, as in everything else the farmer produces, is of paramount importance. No farmer who expects to make a success of grain-growing would think for a moment of selecting his "seconds" for seed purposes, either in wheat, oa a, or barley; and, just as the culls of a flock or herd are the last cLosen for perpetuating the species, eo the undersized tuhtr,' selected at random, and with no indication of constitutional vigour, should never be planted if a profitable and healthy crop is to be expected. At the Wereroa Experimental Farm, where the selection of seed potatoes has been carefully observed on the rules laid do?gn above, the resultant crops have singularly free from blight. Experiments are now in progress to determine wnether, after using from season to season generations of the one type of selected seed, it is not possible to be quite independent of spraying fcr blight. During the past season the Wereroa selected seed has proved immune; but before making a definite pronouncement on the subject it must be further investigated.